Quilting Studio Organization

Every year at this time, I get the urge to organize my studio. Spending countless hours on that black hole known as “Pinterest”, I get very motivated, but I am no closer to being organized than if I did nothing. Staying off Pinterest might help. The pictures of these fabulous studios must be of staged, non-working spaces. I do not see how a creative soul can work in a totally organized, labeled, sorted, space with all the fabric in neat stacks that are color coordinated.

All I have to do is walk into my studio and the “tornado winds” hit with full force. My cleaned desk is suddenly piled high. I have several boxes of items to put away. There is not a neat stack of fabric in sight. I have a couple of cups and my lunch dishes precariously balanced on a stack of patterns and books, and it all happens spontaneously.

On the heavy workdays, fabric is everywhere. Unfortunately, my studio containing my longarm named “Crystal Rose” is not the same room as my sewing room. Double the tornados, double the mess seems to be a daily mantra.

I am able to find everything I need right away, I just do not have a beautiful, lovely staged studio and sewing room. They are work areas and I work in them almost daily. I do not have fabric on the floor, but it is in boxes and bins and disheveled stacks.

I wanted to “organize my scraps” during the month of April. To whom was I kidding? Regular yardage needs attention first. However, I read a couple of articles and a couple of books on methods of organizing your scrap fabric. Sounds great for someone who has lots of free time, no yard work, no garden, no garage, no housework, no dogs or cats, and definitely no quilting business!

We are planning on building a Sewing Cottage in the next couple of months so maybe there is hope. I hope to be able to at least post this beautiful space with everything in its place, color coordinated fabric, and darling decorations on the walls (might happen once when I first move into the Sewing Cottage). After that, it becomes a working space once again.

Speaking of working: here are a couple of tshirt Quilts made for clients.

Gus’ tshirt quilt

Wendy’s tshirt quilt

Ryan’s tshirt quilt

I have three additional tshirt Quilts I am currently working on and hope to get them posted this week for you to see. As I said, my studio and sewing room are working areas!

I was also given Levi’s and a BSU bean bag to make a quilt for a client. Thought I would share that as well:

Memory quilt

Well, it is late and I have a busy day tomorrow. I promise myself that I will not look at any Pinterest studio/sewing rooms tomorrow. I do not need that pie in the sky stuff to distract me from reality.